Who topped the online vote for the most attractive men of 2018? First place went to Kim Taehyung, better known as V of the South Korean group BTS, followed by British singer Zayn Malik and Northern Irish actor Jamie Dornan. The ranking came from a social-media exercise promoted through a YouTube channel: users suggested candidates, a longlist of 100 men was drawn up, and "likes" decided the order.
That makes it a snapshot of online fandom at the end of 2017 and start of 2018, not a scientific measure of beauty. Large, well-organised fan bases, especially in K-pop, can move a vote like this far more than any panel of judges. Still, the top ten is an interesting mix of actors, models and pop stars from around the world, and most of them have had notable careers since.
Below is the full top ten in reverse order, with a short, fact-checked profile of each man and what he has done since the list was made.
Places 10 to 7: four leading men
10. Michael B. Jordan, actor (United States)
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Born in Santa Ana, California, in 1987 and raised in Newark, New Jersey, Jordan first drew attention as Wallace in HBO's The Wire and later in Friday Night Lights. His film breakthrough was Fruitvale Station (2013), followed by Creed (2015), for which he trained intensely for about a year and did his own fight scenes. He went on to play Killmonger in Black Panther (2018), and his twin roles in Ryan Coogler's Sinners (2025) earned him the Academy Award for Best Actor.
9. Çağatay Ulusoy, actor and model (Turkey)
Born in Istanbul in 1990, Ulusoy has a father whose family came from Bulgaria and a mother of Bosniak descent from Bosnia and Herzegovina. As a boy he dreamed of a basketball career, then studied landscape design before winning the Best Model of Turkey contest in 2010, receiving his first acting offer the same night. Series such as Adını Feriha Koydum, Medcezir and İçerde made him a star, and he led The Protector, Netflix's first Turkish original series.
8. Henry Cavill, actor (Jersey, British Isles)
Born on the island of Jersey in 1983, Cavill came close to several huge roles early on: he was a finalist for James Bond in Casino Royale and was attached to a Superman project that fell through. His breakthrough as a leading man came when he finally played Superman in Man of Steel (2013), a role he continued in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. He later starred as Geralt of Rivia in Netflix's The Witcher and is a supporter of the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust on Jersey.
7. William Levy, actor (Cuba and United States)
Levy was born in Cojímar, Havana, in 1980, not in Colombia as some versions of this list claim, and moved to Miami with his family at 14. A baseball scholarship took him to St. Thomas University, and he then studied acting and worked as a model. Telenovelas such as Pasión, Cuidado con el ángel and Triunfo del amor made him famous across Latin America, and in 2012 he finished third on season 14 of Dancing with the Stars.
Places 6 to 4: from the runway to the screen
6. Toni Mahfud, model and artist (Germany)
Toni Mahfud is a German model who is reported to have Syrian roots. He reportedly first gained attention online for his paintings, drawings and photography, which he shared on Instagram before fashion brands began booking him as a model. His large social-media following, built on his art as much as his looks, is a good example of how Instagram created a new route into modelling in the 2010s.
5. Marlon Teixeira, model (Brazil)
Teixeira was born in Pomerode, in the state of Santa Catarina, Brazil, in 1991. His grandmother introduced him to Anderson Baumgartner, a family friend who ran a model agency, and his career took off from there. He has walked for houses including Chanel, Balmain, Dolce & Gabbana and Jean Paul Gaultier, and has opened shows for Emporio Armani and Dior Homme.
4. Maxi Iglesias, actor (Spain)
Born in Madrid in 1991, Iglesias became a household name in Spain as César Cabano in the teen drama Física o química, which he appeared in from 2008 to 2011. He went on to the period drama Velvet and later played Víctor in the Netflix series Valeria, which brought him an international audience.
The top three: Jamie Dornan, Zayn Malik and V
3. Jamie Dornan, actor (Northern Ireland)
Dornan was born in 1982 in Holywood, County Down, a small town near Belfast whose name is often confused with California's Hollywood. He was a leading male model for Calvin Klein and Dior Homme before acting, and won wide praise as the killer Paul Spector in the BBC drama The Fall. Fifty Shades of Grey made him world-famous, and his role as the father in Kenneth Branagh's Belfast (2021) brought a Golden Globe nomination.
2. Zayn Malik, singer (England)
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Zayn Malik was born in Bradford, West Yorkshire, in 1993 to a British Pakistani father and an English mother. He auditioned for The X Factor at 17 in 2010, where the judges placed him in the group that became One Direction. He left the band in 2015, and his debut solo album Mind of Mine (2016) reached number one in both the UK and the US; in 2017 he released "Dusk Till Dawn" featuring Sia.
1. Kim Taehyung (V), singer (South Korea)
Kim Taehyung was born in Daegu, South Korea, on 30 December 1995 and debuted with BTS in June 2013 under the stage name V. Known for his deep voice and playful stage presence, he released his first solo EP, Layover, in September 2023, which debuted at number two on the US Billboard 200. He completed his military service in June 2025. V also took first place in TC Candler's widely shared list of the 100 most handsome faces of 2017, which shows how strongly his fans turn out for votes like these.
What an online vote like this really measures
Social-media polls measure enthusiasm and organisation as much as appearance. A man with a huge, coordinated fan base will usually beat an equally striking actor whose fans are less active online. Rankings also reflect who could vote, which platforms were used and how a shortlist was drawn up, and different lists from the same year often disagree completely: TC Candler's 2017 men's list, for example, put Jason Momoa and Armie Hammer near the top, and none of the men from places 2 to 10 above.
Research on attractiveness adds another caution. What people find appealing varies between cultures and over time, which is why the same man can be ignored by one list and crowned by another. For a visual take on that idea, see how designers in 19 countries edited the same photo of one man: One Portrait, 19 Photoshop Interpretations of Male Beauty.
Lists like this are best enjoyed as a piece of pop-culture history: a moment when K-pop's global reach, Turkish television and Instagram modelling all met in a single ranking.
Sources: Wikipedia: V (singer); Wikipedia: Zayn Malik; Wikipedia: Jamie Dornan; Wikipedia: Maxi Iglesias; Wikipedia: Marlon Teixeira; Wikipedia: William Levy; Wikipedia: Henry Cavill; Wikipedia: Çağatay Ulusoy; Wikipedia: Michael B. Jordan; Catraca Livre: TC Candler 2017 ranking. Preview photo credit: Wikipedia, Zayn / Instagram.
Oh, people still have aesthetic sense!
ReplyDeleteCongratulations V!!!!
Number one is a Trap!
ReplyDeletenumber 1 uwu he looks like a fetus i love it
ReplyDeleteChoosing that nr. 1 shows the majority of the voters are lesbian phedophiles. This
ReplyDeleteguy looks like smal girl.
Personal suggestion..
ReplyDeleteJz turn over to
Vijay Deverakonda,,
SuprbbbLy Talntedd Indian actoR
Fo d nxt round 9f rankings
KinnLy 😊
N i assure dt
U wont b disHeartened atallll 😉☺️